text messages showing as unread on watch after being read on phone

Hello Hollyagostino,

We can help! Knowing when you've read messages is important, so it's understandable you'd reach out. Restarting and checking those notification setting were great steps. In your troubleshooting, did you also ensure that both your Apple Watch and paired iPhone are fully updated? Updated can resolve many odd issues, so if there are any available, back up your iPhone then update. Here are some guides to help:

How to back up your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Update your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

How to manually update apps on your Apple device

Update your Apple Watch

If the behavior continues or you're already updated, unpair your watch and set it up again to see if fresh connections all around help to resolve this:

Unpair and erase your Apple Watch

Set up your Apple Watch

YouTube video from Apple Support: How to unpair and reset your Apple Watch

Let us know how it goes. Take care!

Thanks for getting back to us after trying those steps, Hollyagostino.

When you unpair, then re-pair your Apple Watch, it shouldn't be to a restore backup. It should be to whatever information or data was with your OS at the time.

If the issue is still present, we'd recommend getting in touch with our support team from this point. You can reach them here:

Get Support

You can also find our phone number for your region at this link:

Contact Apple for support and service

All the best.